


The sky was so big it broke my soul

by deerna



Category: Kings (TV 2009)
Genre: Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Inaccurate depicting of therapy, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 06:32:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12102816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deerna/pseuds/deerna
Summary: The journey of Jack Benjamin through recovery and self-acceptance, up until the day of David's coronation, and beyond.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> When I started writing this story on February 2015, I was trying to give Jack some sort of happy ending. I just wanted David to comfort him, I just wanted for them to be friends (or maybe something more?) and happy and safe. No war, no hate, no fear. I wanted closure.
> 
> Then things happened, and I ended up writing a disconnected journey of self-hatred, begrudging self-acceptance and recovery from trauma, using writing as an outlet for my own feelings. 
> 
> Closure isn't something that can be found here, in the end. There are a lot of questions that are left unanswered, and while I _wanted_ to give them space, at some point I realized that this story was finished. It told whatever it wanted to say. 
> 
> I hope you appreciate it.
> 
> \---
> 
> A world of thanks to all those who supported me and suffered through my loud whining while I tried to give a sense to this fic. You're all precious and I love you.
> 
> This work is unbetaed. Feel free to point out mistakes and inconsistencies.

_Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry;_  
_give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit._  
_From you let my vindication come;_  
_let your eyes see the right._

(Psalm 17)

The last phase of the invasion was mostly a quiet affair. Gath’s army crossed the city borders and Shiloh watched, silent and still, as their former enemies became the heralds of hope and freedom.

King Silas’ heart had grown cold like ice, during the two years David was gone; the people that used to love and respect him now just hated him and wanted him gone. The loving king had turned into a heartless tyrant. 

It had been two years. David spent three hundred days alone, looking for God in the blood and the birds, closing his eyes against the glare of a glory he didn’t want. He shielded his ears from the cries of anguish and fear that haunted his dreams at night, and ran from himself. Exiled.

He hadn’t known that Michelle had been driven out of the country as well, until a year later, when Silas had declared her a traitor. She had joined the Gathian forces; he went looking for her, and when he found her she was different and beautiful.

Michelle Benjamin was tired and alone. She had spent a year shedding her princess persona, like a snake skin. She had forced herself to blossom in a steel-like creature, very reminiscent of her own mother. She looked ruthless and unstoppable, and for her love had become a precious thing that she reserved for her son and her country. There was no more room for a man with stigmata in his hands. Not again. 

David spent four hundred days with her. Time didn’t help restore the color that had been slowly draining from the landscape at the edges of his vision. Hope tasted like ash on his tongue. Love felt like dust in his veins. War made them strangers. Michelle wanted him to be king, but she wasn’t willing to become his queen anymore. Her memories of their time together were precious and treasured, too much so. She didn’t want to taint them with a royal wedding. She didn’t want their son to have the life she used to live, groomed to be seated on the throne instead of being raised to be happy and just. 

They became siblings in arms; together they plotted the coup that was going to win Gilboa back, gathering allies and armies and weapons on both sides of the front lines. Michelle sketched out plans with a mind of steel and an iron fist; David encouraged men and women to fight for their land, with God’s warmth in the middle of his chest, cold fear in his gut, and the weight of responsibility for these hopeful lives heavy on his shoulders.

The plan worked. Gilboa’s borders were breached within a week, and they managed to reach the capital three days later. Just like that, Shiloh was free. Peace settled on the city like dust on the streets. Color blossomed in the corner of David’s vision.

It was a swarm of butterflies. 

*

Aidan, dressed in tactical gear, looked as tired as David felt. He had always hated the army, but when Port Prosperity had officially become part of Gath, and Gath had become the primary ally of the Resistance two years ago, he hadn’t hesitated to enlist just to be at David’s side. Their brothers had followed suit, and so now half of their family was military. Their mom was never going to forgive David, even though she knew he was following the word of God. 

Nonetheless, Aidan was smiling as he approached David, who was sitting in the courtyard of Altair Mansion, catching his breath while the rest of his team cleared the building.

“I have new intel from the other teams. Michelle just called from Gehenna; Cross and his son are being taken in custody by Gathian authorities.”

“Oh, good. I was getting worried,” David answered, relieved. William and Andrew Cross were dangerous people; according to Michelle, they still had strong alliances in Gilboa, and they would’ve represented the biggest risk to the coup if they had stayed in the country, let alone if they had managed to flee. Fortunately, Damian Shaw was still sour about Cross’ ploy to keep the war going, and had offered to hold them in the highest security prison in Gath. David had no intention to refuse his offer.

“They were the last ones on the red list, David,” Aidan continued, grin spreading with contagious glee. “It’s over. We won. We’re ready to rebuild.”

David smiled back, feeling dizzy. “It’s almost hard to believe, right?”

“Yeah, no shit. I think it’s going to take a while before I am completely convinced that this is not some weird dream. We’ve been fighting for so long.”

In the past two days they had managed to round up all the members of the old court; Michelle had prepared meticulous lists of every single person that had worked for her father, complete with precise instructions of treatment for each of them. David hadn’t realized how many people worked in the palace until they had to hunt them down.

For the most part, Silas’ men had given up as soon as the borders were breached, and waited quietly for David’s men to arrest them, lifeless puppets waiting for their strings to be cut. Some tried to run, but they didn’t go far. The ones on the white list were going to Gehenna, the ones on the red list were to be expatriated to Gath.

Only Thomasina and the queen stayed at Silas’ side to the very end; the king’s devoted dragon sacrificed herself as she tried to save her king’s life, while Rose let herself be arrested and taken to Gath after the news of her husband’s death. 

Silas wasn’t supposed to die. David wanted to take him alive, to have him spend the rest of his life in prison; he wanted to give him the chance to think about the evil he had done, to meditate and pray, to understand where he had strayed from the path of his alliance with God. But the king had raised a knife against David, and one of David’s men shot him in the chest. _The day you lay a hand on him will be the day you die_ , Silas had whispered as he died, a bitter smile on his mouth. 

A deep sadness weighed in David’s stomach. Even after all that happened between them, Silas had been his king, the only king he had known. David had been loyal to him until he couldn’t anymore, until they had grown so close that he had been able to taste the darkness of his heart and he had to run, leaving his people to suffer.

“But now it’s over,” David whispered, more to himself than to Aidan.

His brother smiled back anyway. Then he looked up, somewhere beside David, and his relaxed expression turned in a perplexed frown. “David?”

“What?” David stiffened in alarm, ready for action.

“What’s with the _bugs_ again?” Aidan said, pointing at David’s left.

David turned. On the stone bench there was a butterfly. Black and orange, like the ones that had settled on his head years before, like the ones that had started it all a lifetime ago. Its wings fluttered gently, like it was waiting patiently for David to pay attention to it. 

“Oh, yeah. There have been a few following me around since the beginning of the coup. I don’t know what they want. Maybe it’s just a sign of His blessing? I have no idea,” David admitted. 

It was kind of embarrassing. As long as his brothers noticed that kind of thing it wasn’t really a problem (aside from a little of good-natured teasing), but he dreaded the moment when regular people caught wind of the fact that God had been giving him signs. He wanted the people to believe, but he didn’t want them to think he was another Silas. 

“You call that a _few_?” Aidan pointed somewhere behind David’s shoulder. 

He turned, and his jaw almost dropped. A seizable swarm of butterflies was brushing around the bushes and near the fountains. As soon as David noticed them, the lone bug on the bench took off, flying high towards the sky, followed by all the others. David watched them trace wide spiral in the air, brushing against the walls, until they stopped around the seventh floor. 

“Has Reed cleared all the floors already?” David asked, eyes glued to the swarm that was gathering and landing against the windows. 

Without another word, Aidan turned his back, pulled a comm unit from his belt and radioed Reed’s team. “They sort of stopped around the third floor,” he said a minute later. “They ticked off all the risky subjects from the list, and the other staff was already clearing out, so…” 

“Tell ‘em to keep going,” David ordered quietly. “Have them have a quick sweep on all the floors, and then search the seventh, especially on the East side.” The butterflies were spreading on the whole wall, a strange, living, black-orange tapestry. “Search everything, everywhere. If there’s a locked door, kick it down. Go with them. Tell Reed that you’re on your way and leave the comm. Keep me posted.” 

Aidan hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with?” he asked, dropping the black contraption in David’s outstretched hand. 

David shook his head. “I need to be here, I want to keep an eye on the swarm. If there is something to be found, you’ll find it.” 

Aidan nodded, and took off, leaving David with his face turned towards the sky and uncertainty churning in his gut. 

For the longest time, nothing happened. 

The courtyard was eerily silent, the only sounds were the water from the fountains and David’s heart in his ears. From time to time, the comm unit crackled briefly with Reed’s voice, signaling clear floor after clear floor, and then the silence fell again. 

Then-

“ _David_ ,” Aidan’s voice came from the comm, breaking up badly. “ _We’re on the seventh. The floor is clear, but we found a locked door on the East side, like you said. Reed and Ezra are working at it- never mind, they’re kicking it down. Stand by_ -” 

Chaos exploded in the background. “Aidan? What’s going on? Aidan!” The channel was open, but the transmission was too disturbed to actually understand what was going on. No response from Aidan’s side, aside from the yelling and the noise of things breaking. A sense of dread washed over David. 

A shower of glass fragments rained down on the garden as the window on the seventh floor collapsed with a crash. The butterflies dispersed briefly, and then landed back on the wall, unfazed. 

Before David could run in the building to help, the comm crackled to life once again. “ _Fuck, I’m sorry, I dropped the damn thing_ ,” Aidan apologized, while Reed in the distance shouted to Ezra to _drop the damn gun, had he lost his mind? He was going to get everyone killed_ \- “ _He completely blindsided us, we kicked down the door and he fucking kicked Reed in the chest, can you believe it? And then Ezra lost his shit and shot the window out, but Reed managed to tackle him before anyone got hurt_ -”

“Wait, wait, slow down,” David interrupted his brother’s rambling. “Who’s he? Did you find something? Are you hurt?”

“ _Right, sorry._ ” The radio hissed with Aidan’s incredulous laughter. “ _We found something all right, little brother, and that something single-handedly almost handed our asses to us_ -”

“Stop dicking around, Aidan.”

“ _-Jack Benjamin. We found the prince, David, alive and kicking_.” 


	2. Chapter 2

_I am like those who have no help,_  
_like those forsaken among the dead,_  
_like the slain that lie in the grave,_  
_like those whom you remember no more,_  
_for they are cut off from your hand._  


(Psalm 88)

That day Jack woke up drenched in cold sweat. 

He tried to calm down, breathing slowly in the dark for a while, letting the sounds from the open window wash over him; but in his agitated mind something buzzed loudly, a deafening fear of being trapped. 

He forced himself up, pushing himself on his feet, almost tripping in the sheets tangled around his legs, clinging to his skin, and stumbled towards the door. He remembered closing it the night before, because he just couldn't sleep in the open. The doctor said that it was his paranoia acting up, but Jack didn't care, he couldn't spend the whole night worrying that somebody could get in. 

If only it didn't mean that, on bad days, that damn closed door made him afraid that he couldn't _get out._

Jack was living a normal life. He wasn't a prisoner. Not anymore.

He was fine, now. He had a room, a house where he actually lived, and he was free to come and go as he pleased. He could cook his own food in his kitchen, and sit at his table, and never be afraid of going hungry. If he ran out of things to read, he could go out and pick out some new books at the library, or browse the internet on his laptop. 

Some days, he still believed that he couldn't unlock his own door.

He groped at the smooth wood, pushing down the fear that felt building in his stomach, that made him pant and tremble, and finally found the brass handle, polished and smooth under his sticky hand. He gripped it hard, and turned it. 

The door swung open, nice and easy, like it was supposed to do. 

A startled laugh escaped Jack's lips, and his knees buckled in relief. He leaned against the door frame, still shivering and laughing, staring in the dim hallway of his own house, until the trembling faded out. 

*

Recovery wasn't going to be easy.

That's what the doctors had said back then, when Jack was still too confused, too stupid with fear for it to make sense, and the only thing that mattered was being among other people again. And it wasn't an illusion this time; David's hand was solid and warm in his, and the way he stroked his back while the doctors tried to explain… something, was gentle and careful and grounding, reassuring. He wasn't seeing things anymore.

Therapy was a nightmare. The sessions were scary and confusing. Everything was too bright, too loud. 

Days and weeks and months kind of ran together, at first. His therapist wore a red scarf, and that was all he could remember of her when she wasn't in the room. He kept forgetting her name and face, even if he had no problem remembering Aaron. But Aaron had nice hands; every time he admitted he couldn't tell her name, she smiled a plastic smile, jotted down a quick note on a small pad that she kept balanced on her knees, and said that it was okay, and Jack felt stupid. 

She always made feel Jack broken and wrong, he didn't like her at all.

Aaron was safe. He told him how he was afraid of her, how it felt irrational and unnatural, how he had tried to push the fear down until it went away, how he couldn't help it. Aaron's hands were gentle on his shoulders. 

She talked a lot. She asked questions. Sometimes he answered, sometimes he hid behind the couch praying that she would grow tired of his silence and leave him alone. Some other times, he went back to his room and couldn't recall what they had talked about, and his body would seize up, and it hurt like he had been shot. He had to count slowly backwards, until he could breathe again.

He was broken and wrong.

*

“Oh, and remember to put the cards in your jacket's pocket, please.”

“Yes, Michelle.”

“You're not listening, are you?”

“Shit, you got me. Sorry, but I'm really late, I kind of had a shitty morning and I'm a little behind--”

“Have you taken your medication?”

“Oh, _fuck_ you. Yes, I did. I'm not five, I don't need you to remind me.”

“You know I worry. Today is going to be pretty chaotic, there are going to be a lot of people you don't know around, and a lot of people you _do_ know, too, which frankly I think is worse… I'm just worried that it's going to be too stressful for you, and I don't want you to get sick. That's all.”

“I'm not going to ruin David's day, Michelle. As much as an effort I may have done in the past.”

“That's-- I didn't mean it in that way, and you know that.”

“Whatever, Michelle. I'm really sorry, I need to get dressed or I'll be late. See you later.”

*

Jack had believed for a long time that his only purpose in life was to become king like his father.

Since he was very young, Jack had been very aware of the fact that being king wasn't easy; so he never complained about the multitude of extra lessons and tutoring about manners, behaviour protocols, economics, political science and business management. When he became of age, he willingly joined the army, to polish his military expertise, because he honestly believed that he needed to do whatever it was in his power to become a fit king. 

He remembered fondly that time, that life before the cage. That life with a goal, with a future. 

Helena (that was the name of his therapist. It was easy to remember, when she kept a helpful little tag with her name pinned to her bright red scarf) asked him to tell her of that time, and when Jack did, she listened intently, writing something on her pad, but she never interrupted him.

He told her of the war, how helpless he had felt laying on the ground, wounded, fearing for his life, the broken bodies of his men strewn around him; he told her of his uncle's ploy, how he hadn't realized that he was being used; he told her of the girls he dated, how he chose the prettiest ones so he could give his father a healthy heir; he told her how he would have done anything to become king.

“I cut my heart out,” he told her, lost in a flurry of old memories, speaking through the fog and the ghosts.

“What do you mean, your heart?” she asked with a frown, and Jack didn’t answer.

*

It always took him forever to get dressed in the morning.

When he was the crown prince, he had eyes on him all the time. His looks had to be perfect, polished; he spent a lot of time fixing his hair, picking out a watch, dabbing a little cologne in the hollow of his throat, behind his ears. Attempting to meet certain expectations. 

On the other hand, he just liked it; he knew he was attractive, and he knew he was being watched, envied, desired. It was hard not to grow vain, knowing that. 

But after the Liberation, nobody wanted to look at Jack Benjamin. Some people even struggled to acknowledge that he was still alive, afraid that the former royal legacy could endanger the new found peace. So Jack Benjamin had become invisible; even his co-workers pretended he was just some guy with a shitty job like everyone else. 

There wasn't really any need to fuss over his appearances as much as he _still_ did, but he found comfort in the routine. He liked the illusion of normalcy. He liked looking into the mirror, and seeing that beneath that frail stranger there was still someone that looked like himself. 

His therapist had encouraged it; having a fixed routine, small things and gestures, helped ground him to reality. Every morning he picked his outfit, left it on the bed, took a shower. He got dressed, he had breakfast, and left for work. 

The dress uniform looked out of place on his bed. Michelle had called, disrupting his routine, but he had still took some minutes to spread the uniform on the bed, like he did with his regular clothes every other morning before getting in the shower. 

Going through the usual steps had helped a little with his nerves, but now that he had to get dressed, something was stopping him. 

It had been a long time since he had to dress up. He remembered the feeling of that particular uniform, of how it felt like an actual suit of armor, more than his usual body protection and bulletproof vests. Slipping into it never failed to give him the impression that he was preparing himself for battle; it used to make him feel powerful and confident.

Now it reminded him of the day he was supposed to kill his father, and was shot instead.

*

When he wasn't in a session with the woman with the red scarf, and Aaron wasn't around, Jack spent most of his time huddled against the window, listening to the noises that came from the garden and the street below. He was technically allowed to go out (with Aaron), if he wished to do so; but Jack was fine inside, he only wanted to listen to the noises. 

They were familiar noises. They were the same noises that kept him company in the solitude of his cage. They felt much louder than they used to be, because this window's glass was thinner, and it couldn't stop bullets. Sometimes it felt so loud that it made his skin crawl. It made him feel like he was outside, and like his brain was melting out of his ears... But everything else in that place was scary and foreign, and the noise was loud and painful but oh-so-familiar, so Jack pressed his hands against the cold glass, closed his eyes, and held on. 

Aaron usually found him like that. Aaron knew that it was imperative not to touch him, when he was trying to reach out to the outside noises, so Aaron just put on some low music, turning up the volume notch by notch, until his attention was on him. 

He had a vague knowledge of the fact that there were others like him in the facility, and that they could meet and talk to each other in the common rooms downstairs, but he wasn't allowed to join them because he wasn't ready. He didn't care that much about it, really. He had Aaron, and Aaron was _beautiful_ , with those stunning green eyes, that kind smile, those long, slender fingers. 

Aaron always came in some time after the therapy sessions with a book, and they would spend a few hours reading together. It wasn't like he couldn't read, but sometimes the words blurred together and he couldn't make them out. Sometimes they were there on the page but they made no sense. 

It scared him, and it was one of the most humiliating things he had ever experienced, and he was often so upset about it that he outright refused to even _look_ at Aaron when he came in, pouting angrily at the window, until Aaron, who usually started reading out loud whether or not he was sulking, reached a passage in the book that sounded particularly intriguing. 

Aaron was patient and kind and he didn't care if he cried in his shirt.

*

The hall was full of people. 

There was a glass in Jack’s hand, and he was holding to it for dear life. He couldn’t remember if he had snatched it off some passing waiter’s tray himself, so he had something to do with his hands. Maybe it had been Michelle who handed it to him, forgetting that he couldn’t drink it; alcohol and his meds didn’t mix well. 

He looked at the thin bubbles lacing the champagne, and imagined taking a sip, and then downing it, feeling the alcohol react with the pills in his stomach, the cramp in his guts. He saw his body crumple to the floor, and heard the people whisper among themselves, as men in white uniforms took him away on a stretcher…

Loud laughter from the other side of the room startled him back to reality, and the glass almost slipped from his fingers. _Fuck_. He tried to calm himself down, counting his breaths slowly, but he was once again drenched in cold sweat. He was trembling. 

He tucked his elbow tight against his side, so that the shaking didn’t jostle the content of his glass, making it less noticeable. It was a trick that an old PR manager had taught him and Michelle when they still were considered actual royalty, to stop journalists from writing nasty things in the rags if the young princes got the jitters. The memory made him even sicker than he already felt. 

He had to find Michelle. He loathed the idea of leaving his safe spot near the table - pretending to browse the buffet was a sure fire way to avoid being disturbed - but he was starting to feel jumpy. He needed a distraction. Chatting with her helped, sometimes. 

He crossed the room, feeling like every single guest was looking at him. He couldn’t stop thinking about the events in the old days, when he couldn’t take a step without being stopped by a journalist asking about his last girlfriend, or some girl who longed to be the next one. 

Jack hadn’t actually seen cameras in the room. Probably nobody was looking at him. But old habits were hard to die, and his paranoia was going haywire. He was simultaneously alert and distracted: alert enough to catch if someone made accidental eye contact with him from across the room, and distracted enough not to hear approaching some loud, distant relative or family friend, that had suddenly decided that clapping him on the shoulder was the best way to greet the traumatized ex-crown prince. 

He was already tired, and the main event hadn't even started yet. 

When he spotted Michelle, elegant and severe in her dark blue suit, he felt himself marginally relax. She wasn't alone, but that was okay; as long as she was there, she could steer the conversation away from uncomfortable questions. He hadn't felt so safe by her side for years. 

She saw him first, before the two men in uniform she was talking to did, and she waved him closer with a slightly forced smile, concern barely concealed on her face. “Oh there you are! Are the voulevants any good?”

“You know I can't stand voulevants.” He avoided her eyes, turning to greet the two men, but he felt his smile freeze on his face when he recognized them. 

“You could've brought a couple for me, at least,” Michelle complained, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was _even more_ upset than he was five seconds ago. “I love voulevants. Don't you love voulevants?” she kept going, turning the question to the taller Shepherd. “Oh by the way, Jack, do you remember Aidan and Reed? David's brothers?”

“I remember them,” Jack answered feebly. He remembered them even too well. “It's n-nice to see you again.”

“Likewise,” the taller of the two, Reed, replied. “I'm glad to see you well,” Aidan echoed earnestly, with a small smile.

Jack swallowed, resisting the impulse of wipe his sweaty hand on his jacket, and tucking his elbow even more in his side. “Th-thank you, I guess.”

“And it was so nice speaking with you, Michelle, but I'm afraid we need to go check on the family and everything,” Aidan told Michelle, with an apologetic smile. “See you later during the ceremony I guess? Oh, and the dinner party after.”

“Of course. See you later.”

Jack didn't want to know what he looked like in that moment, small and vulnerable next to Michelle. He just wanted to run away, but instead he just adjusted his grip on that fucking, still full glass. 

“That was really smooth,” Michelle commented, deadpan, sipping her champagne. “Truly Jack Benjamin right there.”

“Shut up,” he growled, gritting his teeth. “I had an episode back at the table, and then I come here and you're talking with the whole fucking _flock_ , it's a fucking miracle I didn't break down and caused a scene.”

“I assumed that much. You've been glued to the same spot for twenty minutes, I didn't think you came over because you missed me,” she snarled quietly, bitter and worried, getting closer.

Jack sighed. “Look, I'm sorry, I'm on edge because of all these people, and the ceremony, and the uniform, and- Aidan Shepherd was- he was there when. You know. That's why I reacted badly, I didn't mean to take it out on you. You know that I love you, right?”

Michelle looked up from her glass, startled. “Of course I do. I love you, too,” she said quickly.

“I'm sorry that you got stuck with the crazy twin,” he whispered. Everything felt a little too real, in that moment, like when he was retelling his traumas to Helena and her bright scarf. 

Michelle looked so uncomfortable it was almost a little funny. “You're not crazy, Jack.”

“I'm so crazy you can smell it on me,” he replied, dead-pan. “But it's okay--”

The rest of his answer, and his thoughts, was drowned by a sudden cheer. Michelle grabbed him by the sleeve, trying to see what all that noise was about, but all that Jack managed to see was the golden back of David's head while he headed back to the ceremony hall, and it was enough.

*

David was tall and kind of attractive. Naive, too trusting for his own good, but that was okay; it was part of his charm. His smile was shy, his frown deep. It tugged at something in his chest. He looked good in a uniform and he looked good in civvies. He looked good when he laughed, and he bet he would’ve looked good when he cried, too, if Jack had lest himself imagine him like that.

But he never did. That was David in Jack’s mind. That had been the David that kept him company in his cage. He was always happy, always comforting. 

Being alone all the time made him afraid, so he pictured people in the room with him. He spoke to them, trying to forget he was never going to speak to the real them never again. There was Michelle. His mom. Lucinda, even if he knew she had left him to die. His dad, even though he was still angry with him, and he made him afraid. 

He had known that they weren’t really there. He had known that the real David, the real Michelle and the others were somewhere else. At some point he had wondered if they were still alive at all. Not that it would’ve mattered, in his cage.

According to his doctors, his imagination had saved his brain. It was a nice way to say that he still was sort of crazy, but it could've been worse.

Jack was getting better. He was doing good, his meds were working, and everyone was optimistic about his recovery. His memory wasn't so patchy anymore; words stuck in his mind more easily; reading and writing was easier every day. They gave him access to the lower floors, to the shared spaces (but he never got out of his room; he preferred his books and his drawings and his music and Aaron).

They cleared him to see visitors. One day Michelle came in his room, and he hugged her and they cried, and they talked, and talked, and talked. He hadn't talked to her like that in years, and he had squeezed her hand like a lifeline.

Jack was doing okay. He was doing _good_. Helena (he could remember her name without reading her fucking tag every time, now) said that he could've been out in a few months, if he didn't relapse.

Then one day Michelle told him that David wanted to come visit.

He asked why, and she answered because he wanted to see him. He wanted to see how he was doing. David was pretty worried, you know. He wasn't in good shape when he was found. Didn't he want to meet him?

And of course he wanted to meet David. They had talked about him, before. He and Michelle were working together a lot, he was bound to come up in conversation. Other than that, he honestly thought that David was a great person, a good friend, even if Jack had done so much wrong to him in the past. He liked the idea of meeting him again. He wanted him to be his friend; they could start over.

But the day David came through the door, a soft, hopeful smile on his lips, slight crinkles around his eyes, tall and attractive like Jack remembered him, something happened. Jack's mind shut down. It was as if his brain didn't want to admit that David was standing there in front of him. It didn't want to believe that David was real. His brain told him that he could see him, but he couldn't touch him (Aaron told him so, it was a protocol thing, since David wasn't family -and he always listened to Aaron) and therefore he wasn't real.

It went on for weeks. It didn't matter how much Aaron, Helena, Michelle, _Jack himself_ tried to rationalize; every time David showed up, and every time Jack couldn't help but ignore him. Pretend that he wasn't there. Eventually David stopped coming.

Jack was furious. He understood that it wasn't something he had control over, but he couldn't stand it. He started dissociating. He was constantly upset and cranky, nervous like a wounded animal, hating himself for the apparent relapse he was going through. The self-loathing felt like scratching an old itch, and the more vicious he become, the more he enjoyed it.

His time with Helena turned into sessions of teeth-pulling. Feeling more vulnerable than ever, he closed off. Everytime she tried to pry in his life, he shut her down. He refused to do her exercises, he didn't share his stories anymore, he didn't answer her questions.

He felt her becoming increasingly merciless in her prodding and her guessing, ignoring her words and shielding himself from the uncomfortable truths she threw his way, until she told him that his pursuing the throne was actually an attempt to win his father's love and approval. Was his refusal towards David a way to protect himself from his failure?

_Jack?_

White noise filled his mind while he thrashed the room, and afterwards his throat hurt like he had screamed himself hoarse.

*

“Michelle, would you stop pacing? You're wearing down the damn carpet,” Jack said, washing his hands, washing his hands, washing his hands. Counting the seconds in his mind, focusing on his breathing.

“Excuse me if I’m worried! Hell, I hadn’t even realized that you were having an attack. What if it happens while you’re giving your speech?” she wondered, throwing her hands up in an aborted gesture.

Jack sighed, tired. “I don't know, Michelle. I will have a panic attack on national tv, you'll drag me away from the podium and it'll be a problem of whoever's gotta keep the show running.”

Michelle finally stopped to glare at him in the mirror. “That's not funny, don't even joke about it.”

For long seconds, the only noise in the small luxurious bathroom was the running water. Jack shut it off and grabbed the towel under the sink to wipe his hands dry, before turning to face his sister.

He expected to find her pissed and nervous, like she used to be just before all the official ceremonies they had suffered through when they were kids; instead, she was pale, faint tear tracks on her cheeks that she hadn't wiped yet, in fear of messing up carefully done her make up, and he felt bad for her. He had really scared her.

“Michelle,” he said, gently taking her by the shoulders and pulling her in a hug. “Do you remember when we were kids? And you were afraid of the big diner room?”

“God,” she sniffed. “It wasn't really the room, you know. And we were like, seven.”

“No, I know. It was the damn cutlery that scared you. You were afraid you were going to mess up the order of the forks or whatever, and I teased you mercilessly about it every single time. Do you remember?”

“Of course I remember. You were such a jerk.”

“And once you sat right between d-dad,” Jack bit his tongue when he stuttered over the word, “and one of those big old generals whatshisname, the one you were terrified of…”

“...and you spent all evening doing a sloppy mess of your food,” she laughed brokenly in his shoulder. “I had completely forgotten! I was so distracted by you being a complete goof that I had forgotten to worry about the damn etiquette.” She pulled away a little and smiled up at him. “What prompted this walk down memory lane?”

Jack smiled, self-deprecating. “I just wanted to remind you that we always looked after each other?”

She snorted a little, smile turning bitter. “Sort of. But we've been doing better lately.”

“Not really, but if you say so…” he replied, fixing a strand of hair that had fallen out her bun. “No, actually I just wanted to cheer you up a little. I'm sorry I scared you.”

“Don't apologize, it's not like it's your fault,” she said quickly.

“No really, let me finish. I'm sorry I scared you. I'm sorry I'm being so difficult today. It's... It hasn't been a good one,” Jack forced out, thinking of how disoriented he had felt that morning just out of bed, the way he had spaced out in the shower and at the table just a few moments before. “I won't pretend I'm not nervous. But earlier I didn't have a panic attack. It was just- I don't know what it was, but I'm fine now. I was probably nervous because David was right there and- you remember what happened last time we were in a room together, don't you.”

“I do. Are you sure you're gonna be okay this time?”

“I... Think so. I think that it was more the fear of dissociating than actual dissociation, you know? But now it's gone. I'm not one for optimism usually, but I think I'm gonna be fine. It's going to be fine,” he repeated, maybe more for his own sake than Michelle's.

“Okay. If you say you're okay, I believe you,” she took a deep breath. “And as you said, if you're sick during the speech I'll just swoop in and save the day. Like a superhero, or something.”

“I bet Daniel would be proud of his super mom. You're gonna need a secret identity for that, though,” Jack joked, letting her go with a smile.

“I'll work on it next time, when we don't have only twenty minutes to revise your speech before the ceremony,” Michelle replied, dismissively, checking her watch. “Whip out your cards, we have work to do.”

*

After what Aaron called diplomatically ‘the accident’, the doctors had been worried that the episode would've meant a setback for his recovery, but apparently Jack surprised them; since he was doing so well, they deemed him ready for the next step, whatever it meant.

Jack didn't feel okay. Everything was bitter and dark and awful and real and true and crystal clear, like shards of broken glass in the water. He took his meds. He answered to Helena's questions. He didn't think. It was as if he had screamed himself empty, and nothing was left inside.

But maybe because he was so empty inside, it suddenly became easy to pretend he was fine. It was shockingly easy, when his doctors asked questions, to guess the answers that they were expecting from him; it felt natural to smile back when they smiled at him. It was such a familiar game; he had played it for all his life, but he never suspected that he would've won in that kind of place, too.

Or maybe the fact that he was getting better at lying _was_ the sign that he was healing.

He lied to the doctors, he lied to Helena, he lied to Michelle, and lying was making him better. He convinced himself that as long as he could fake it, he could've made it, as the old saying went. It was just a matter of keeping the façade up until he was cleared to be discharged from the facility.

At that point, Jack was basically planning his escape. The thought of going outside alone was enough to make him grit his teeth, a little crack in the perfect mask of sanity that he was wearing these days, but Discharge was the last, big step that everyone was talking about. The big, fat proof that Jack Benjamin was still good for something.

The only thing that still kept him from having a complete clearance to leave was Aaron.

He loved his time with Aaron. There was something different about him. He knew that what they were doing was technically still therapy, but it didn't feel like it at all. Now that he had started to act less shy and more confident, their relationship actually felt like the sort of friendship that Jack would have pursued with him if they had met outside the facility: they watched movies together, they argued about them, they laughed, they joked around.

It never felt like he was faking, when he was with him. Maybe he really did miss having a friend, somebody he could trust. And he did trust him. That's why he couldn't lie to him.

The rational part of his brain told him that it was dangerous and stupid and could compromise the whole plan, but the other part, the side that saw Aaron's slender hands, his kind eyes, his attractive smile, told him that it didn't matter. If he could pretend that everything was okay, if he didn't think about it, it was almost like it didn't exist.

Then one day Aaron came in with a letter from David.

The letter itself was nothing special. It was short, uncompromising. David had to know that the letter was going to be read by the nurses before it got to Jack. It was just a few words, in which David told him how sorry he was that they hadn't manage to talk when he had come to visit (as if it had been because of some spontaneous mishap, and not Jack's fault), and that since meeting in person wasn't viable, he wanted to know if Jack was interested to start a written correspondence.

Jack didn't know if he was interested, but he had been reading the letter out loud to Aaron, and Aaron got him paper and pens so he could write out a reply anyway. They'd been sitting on the bed, next to each other, and when Jack mumbled that he didn't know what to write, Aaron slid closer and bumped his shoulder against his.

It was the _smell_ that did him in. He had never realized that Aaron smelled so good; they'd never been so close. He was kind, friendly, and his eyes shined with excitement on Jack's behalf, and he smelled like safety and truth and trust, like clean sheets and laughter, like a life that was still there where Jack had left it, and he had no idea he could remember with his scrambled eggs for brains.

Jack leaned in and, before he could realize what he was doing, he kissed him.

Aaron - kind, understanding Aaron - waited for Jack to lean back, and then spoke a single, somber word.

“Jack.”

He had spoken not unkindly, but from his tone Jack knew that _Aaron knew_. Aaron knew that Jack was lying, that he wasn't well, that Jack still needed help, and probably all those things that had crawled out of Jack, those things that he didn't have inside himself anymore because he was _empty_ , those things-

_(faggot)_

“Don't tell them, please,” Jack begged quietly, while the emptiness became pure void, and he felt himself cave in like an empty can.

Aaron opened his mouth, as if to say something, but in the end he didn't say anything, lips so pressed together that they looked like a thin line. He just picked up the pen that had rolled off the floor, gave it to Jack, and started again on the letter, as if nothing had happened.

He was still the best thing that had happened to Jack in that facility. 

*

The ceremony was going well.

He and Michelle went in, got to their seats, were pointed and talked at by a couple of reporters and their cameras, more out of curiosity than anything, and then the soon-to-be king stole the stage. The ritualistic words and gesture were performed appropriately.

Jack didn't faint, scream or freeze with panic. He respectfully clapped his hands like everyone else with a smile on his face when David rose from the silky cushion and turned towards his audience.

The crown looked amazing on his head. It truly looked like it had been made for him, as he looked like he had been made to stand before them all with that proud line in his back and his shoulders, a shy and nervous, almost self-deprecating smile on his lips.

He looked human. He looked like a king.

Jack was aware of the fact that the smile had slipped from his own face, and he was cold, but he couldn't move, he couldn't stop staring. With some luck nobody would've noticed, since everybody was still cheering. He couldn't stop thinking that his father had never looked like that, but in a few old photos. He couldn't help but think that he wouldn't have looked like that either.

He briefly saw himself standing on the steps with a black crown on his brow, his face and fingers made of melting wax, a dark suit made of dead flies. Looking more like a corpse than a man, a hollow shell in the golden light. A deep pain in his chest, the smell of deceive...

“Speech!” somebody yelled in the back, startling him out of his nightmarish reverie.

Everybody laughed. Jack ignored Michelle, who was trying to ask with her eyes if he was alright, visibly worried, and just dismissed her with a nod, turning his attention back to the embarrassed king who was fiddling with a possibly malfunctioning microphone, or maybe just his nerves.

The mic gave a loud feedback screech and everyone laughed again when David winced, keeping the offending instrument out of reach while a flustered technician ran in to fix the problem.

The laughter and the relaxed atmosphere didn't belong in that room, in Jack's mind and memories, but everyone else seemed to be comfortable with breaking up the illusion of solemnity and formality that such an occasion usually required. Even Michelle looked less severe, a softly amused expression on her face. The buzzing in the room died down by itself when David tapped gently on the now tamed microphone, smiling apologetically at the crowd.

“And that's why I'm not a technician, but just a king,” he joked lightly, rousing another, softer round of laughter from the audience. “Anyway. I mostly wanted to thank you all. I think that words cannot express how much I'm happy and honoured to have you all here, in this room, on this day.”

The king then spoke of his gratitude towards the people that had worked with him, so that this day, and all the days to come, could happen. He spoke of his Faith, of how he always believed in God and His ways, how he disliked to say that he 'had been chosen by God', because he truly believed that Gilboa herself was precious to the Lord. He spoke of family and loss and strength, he confessed his past fears and his present doubts, and in half an hour managed to win more followers than King Silas Benjamin had managed to gain in all his life.

“The future is all ours to take, but without roots even the tallest of the trees falls to his death during a storm. That's why we can't forget that we build on our past.” David paused.

“That's why our most honoured guests here today are Michelle and Jonathan Benjamin.”

David looked right at Jack. He felt all the eyes in the room doing the same, and straightened his back, daring himself to shake under the pressure. 

*

On release day, Jack had to pack his things before leaving. He didn't actually think that he would've have to, but he apparently had more things than he thought; it turned out that most of the stuff Aaron had brought with him during his sessions were actually meant to become his, and so Jack had found himself with a lot of books, notebooks, a pile of David's letters, pens, DVDs and a few changes of clothes, enough to fill up a small suitcase.

By the time that they had gathered everything, the room looked strangely empty. Jack hadn't realized that he had actually lived the place in until every trace of him was gone.

“Do you think I'm lying?” he asked Aaron, sitting on his bed with the back against the wall, waiting for Michelle to pick him up. He had actually meant to ask 'do you think I'm ready?' but he guessed that question was good as any. He was going to miss Aaron. He didn't want to leave him.

Aaron, who was trying to unstick a stubborn piece of tape from the wall where Jack had hang a newspaper clipping with David's first public appearance after the fall of the old government, glanced at him, a quizzical look on his face. “Lying? About what?”

“About me, I guess. The recovery, my... issues.”

Aaron hummed, thoughtful, nails scratching absently against the tape. “Recovery is a process,” he said, carefully. “Many of our guests and their families think that once they get out, they'll be perfectly healed. Back to how they were before, 'normal'. There is no such thing as normal, of course, everybody has their little things and issues, but- there's no real healing either, especially from the kind of ailments that we treat here.” He finally let the sticky piece of tape alone and turned fully towards Jack. “Do I think you're lying? No, I think you're coping through a well practiced defense mechanism.”

Jack didn't answer. Suddenly his nails were incredibly interesting. He felt the bed dip when Aaron sat down next to him, and then his warm, comforting fingers looping around his ankle. Even after that awkward kissing business, Aaron hadn't stopped being physical with him, and Jack was ridiculously grateful to him for that.

“Hey,” Aaron called softly, making him look up. “What is it?”

Jack shrugged, looked away. “I guess I'm just wondering if the crazy police is going to lock me up again if they find out I've been lying to get the hell out of here.”

“Nobody's going to 'lock you up' because you lied, and we're not the 'crazy police',” Aaron reminded him with a long suffering sigh. “Do you feel like you're getting away with it? Do you feel guilty?”

“I hate when you do that,” Jack complained. “No, I don't feel guilty. I'm just a little nervous, that's all. I haven't been outside in a very long time, what if it turns out that I'm not ready to leave, after all? What if I'll never be ready to go back?”

“Well, it's going to take awhile for you to get used to it, but you're ready. Exercise helps. We practised what to do when you find yourself in certain situations. The pills should work. It'll be fine.”

Jack looked down at Aaron's long fingers around his ankle. They were touching his bare skin right above his sock, under the pants leg, and it was the closest thing to intimate physical contact that Jack had experienced in years. It made him think of another lifetime, of sneaking out at night, of never turning on the light in the bedroom, when he pretended that, since God's light didn't touch the Earth, He wouldn't have seen his sins in the dark.

Since the kiss, Jack had treated Aaron like that darkness; as long as it was him, nothing was forbidden, nothing was shameful. They talked about it; his awkward teen years, his first kisses and fumbling, how he learned to fake girlfriends and cover up his actual crushes; he even told him about Joseph, once. The only real thing he had ever touched, and he had lost him. After years, he had finally let himself grieve.

And now he was afraid to step into the light.

His thoughts must have shown on his face, because Aaron's grip tightened, gently. “Do you want to tell me what this is really about, Jack?”

He really didn't, but did he have any choice? Aaron was the darkness. Aaron was safe.

“It's just, you know. My father called me a faggot on national television, so it's not like nobody knows, but it still doesn't mean I can talk about it,” he said quickly, glancing up at Aaron.

_I’m going to miss you._

Aaron’s face did something complicated, like he was trying to grimace and stay calm at the same time. He gave up and it just crumpled in a pissed frown. “Fuck it,” he muttered, getting up. He went to the desk, wrote something on a piece of paper, teared off a strip and came back to the bed.

“Don't tell nobody about this,” he said, giving him the strip of paper, folded in half. “This is my personal number. Call me if you need anything, okay? I mean it, anything, whenever.”

Jack accepted it, a tightness in his throat that left him completely speechless.

The moment was interrupted by a nurse that came in knocking, to warn them that Michelle had finally arrived. Aaron offered to walk him to the car, and they walked through the familiar halls in a comfortable silence. Michelle and Aaron exchanged a few polite words; Jack said nothing and hugged him, before getting into the car.

He hated goodbyes. 

*

He couldn't remember stepping behind the podium, or at least not very well, aside from Michelle squeezing his arm and pushing him towards the steps, whispering a hushed encouragement, but Jack was standing and staring at a crowd, so it had happened. 

Jack fumbled with his jacket to retrieve his cards from the inner pocket, and almost whimpered when he realized that he couldn't read them. Lines of text, painstakingly written by Michelle, who had sacrificed day after day to help him practise delivering the whole thing, looked like children's illegible scribbles to his panicking mind.

It wasn't like he didn't remember Michelle's speech; she had him repeat it again and again, day after day. His mind was full of her words ( _David was a simple man of humble origins, his generosity and loyalty made him the perfect man for the job, he saved the country through his good will and stubbornness, and those were the qualities that God had chose him for, the qualities that had made him king_ ) but his tongue wouldn't move. Every time he swallowed, it was as if his throat was working around a lump of glue. 

His trembling was probably very noticeable, at least to those who were sitting in the first row. His silence was definitely noticeable, especially to those with cameras, microphones and nasty head titles ready on their little noteblocks. He looked up. The crowd stared, expectantly waiting for him to start. 

David was looking at him, serious and calm, waiting for him with a serene smile. It was as if his expression was saying, 'take your time, I'm not in a hurry', and it was such a bullshit face that Jack felt a spark of that old anger.

The cards were starting to feel damp in his hands; he looked down at them, and saw them covered in nice, sugar-coated lies. He threw them aside. 

“You all know who I am,” he started finally, voice hoarse. “I'm the one whose life David Shepherd saved, and the one who hates him.”

It felt startlingly good to tell the truth, once in awhile. 

“I hated him since the day my father got him under his wing, when he started considering him more a son than his own flesh and blood; I hated him since my father realized that he was actually more dangerous than all his enemies together; I hated him since, when my father asked me to lie at the trial so he would be imprisoned, he was willing to fall in order not to betray his king's loyalty. I hate him now, because he's taken that crown that is mine by birthright.”

Nothing moved in the room. He had the suspect that many had stopped breathing. He glanced at David before going on, to gauge his reaction, but the king just had a slight smile on his face, dumb shit that he was. 

“But David- he never hated me. He had always had faith in me, even. He always treated me like a friend. When nineteen months ago-” his voice cracked, and he had to lick his lips. 

“Nineteen months ago he found me in a room, far away from the eyes of men and God, and he was happy to see that I was still alive. He kept in touch while I did my best to ignore him, and I have piles of sappy letters where he tells me that he can't wait for me to get better because he wants to talk face to face about his crazy ideas to get Shiloh back on its feet, and for some crazy reason he wants me to do it with him.”

He thought of Michelle's beautifully phrased conclusion, and felt a little guilty. She had spent so much time on that speech, and he had just went and fucked it up. 

“I'm not happy to see David with that crown,” he said again, a small white lie to bring the point home. “My whole life was burnt away preparing for that role, and I won't thank God because He decided that a farmer, a soldier's son, was good enough to snatch it away. He's gonna be a lousy king, and it will be His fault, but-” he looked at David. “He's a good man, a loyal friend, and this damn country's best bet.”

He fled the stage before anyone could make him stay longer, David's solitary clapping loud and deafening in the silent room. 

*

“Aaron speaking, who's this?”

It was so good hearing Aaron's familiar voice, even slightly distorted through the phone. Jack closed his eyes, just absorbing the sound for a moment. He still thought that calling him had been a dumb idea, but now it was too late to go back. Of course he could just hang up...

“Hello? Can you hear me?” Aaron said again. “It seems I can't hear you, who's this?”

“Hi,” Jack rasped, clutching at his cellphone. “Sorry, I'm- It's Jack. How are you?”

“Jack! Hi, I'm so happy to hear from you, it's been a while,” Aaron said, and bless his heart, he actually sounded sincere. “I'm okay, thank you. You? Are you doing okay?”

“I'm- yeah, I guess,” Jack muttered. He was sitting under his desk with a stack of print paper and a pen, petting obsessively one of his newest ties, silky and comforting. Doing really good, for a crazy person.

“That's good,” Aaron answered, an odd inflection in his voice. Could he hear the lie in Jack's voice? “That's really good. So, you're calling just to chat?”

“I'm sorry to bother you, I just-”

“Hey, hey, you're not bothering me,” Aaron reassured him. “I was just taking fifteen, we can chat for a while. Wanna tell me about your day?”

Jack almost laughed. It was their usual ice-breaker. “Sure. I have a new routine now. I get up, have breakfast, take a shower. Preparing my clothes before showering, you know. Then I go to work- Michelle got me this tiny job at the office, I get to lick stamps and write addresses on envelopes all day,” he said. He hated that job. He hated going outside.

“Sounds exciting,” Aaron commented, deadpan.

A bitter laugh escaped from his throat. “No, it's so boring I could cry. And I hate my colleagues,” he added. He felt their eyes on his back while he walked down the hall, with his pile of envelopes held against his chest like a shield. It made his skin crawl. Some days he wished he was invisible, or that nobody knew his face, so he could be left alone.

“Shitty colleagues are like weeds, they grow everywhere,” Aaron sighed, sympathetic. “Have I ever told you about Mark?”

“Wasn't he that guy who always finished the coffee without putting on a fresh pot?”

“Yeah, that's him. Hate that guy.”

There was a lull in the conversation, but it was a brief, comfortable silence. Jack didn't really want to break it, but as much as the friendly small talk was pleasant, he had called Aaron for a reason.

“You know, I'm actually not doing so good,” he admitted, leaning his head against the side of the desk. “I've been having panic attacks a lot, these days.”

He heard Aaron taking a sharp inhale on the other side.

“I know I was supposed to call Helena,” he rushed out, before he could tell him something. “But I can't tell her why I'm having them, Aaron, she's so convinced that everything that's wrong with me stems from the relationship with my father or whatever, and if I have to hear that kind of bullshit again I think I'm going to snap for real.”

“Okay, so I'm going to save myself some time then, and I won't tell you that Helena is a certified doctor and your therapist and I'm just some guy who can't give you professional advice, for the millionth time. Oh wait, I did it anyway, my bad,” Aaron said, the joke somewhat weaker than usual. Jack smiled anyway; he missed Aaron something fierce, his easy sense of humour and the way he never treated him like he was made of glass. “So, what is it?”

“David,” Jack said. “He wants me to deliver a speech during the coronation ceremony.”

“Okay,” Aaron answered, a little hesitant. Jack wondered if Aaron had to remind himself that yes, Jack was actually someone who used to be a prince and who was currently friends with the soon-to-be king. Just because Aaron never treated him differently, it didn't mean that he didn't find it mind boggling. After a beat he found again his footing. “That's a big deal, huh.”

“Yeah. I think he wants to show that he's not hostile towards either me or Michelle. If he has support from the previous royal family, he's virtually got every right to do whatever he wants to do, and he won't ever be accused of treason or something,” Jack thought out loud, eyes fixed on the carpet. There was a discolored stain right next to his foot.

“Urgh, this friendly chat is turning unexpectedly risque,” Aaron muttered nervously. “Politics isn't my forte, but aside from diplomatic chess moves... not as a prince but as a person, how do you feel about that?”

Jack frowned. “What do you mean?”

“As a person. Forget that you are prince Jack Benjamin for a second; you guys are friends, aren't you? From what you told me about David he sounds like a regular guy, nevermind the fact that he's, you know, gonna be king in a few weeks. How do you feel about the fact that your friend wants you to deliver a speech on such an important day for him?”

“It's- Aaron, I can't just ignore my role,” Jack spluttered. “It's my duty. I- you don't know how much I wish that my past didn't mean anything. I just want everyone to forget about me, but- I don't think David would even want me there, if it wasn't for the fact that I am Jack Benjamin.”

And that was the truth. Jack's worth was his name. History had stripped him bare, and now he was just Jack, the guy who licked stamps and wrote addresses on envelopes because his sister got him the job. Why would David spend time with him otherwise? Even Aaron started hanging around because he was paid to, and the thought alone was enough to make him want to cry.

“Pardon my french, but that's bullshit,” Aaron said in his no-nonsense tone. “Look, Jack. I don't know him like you do, but I think that David is the real deal. I could be mistaken, but he doesn't seem like the guy who would keep up false pretenses. If he didn't give a shit about you, he wouldn't have kept in touch. He wouldn't have tried again, and again to come visit while you were sick.” He paused. “Maybe you can really trust him.”

“Trust someone? I really can't.”

“You trusted me.”

“You're different,” Jack muttered, feeling hot on the back of his neck. He had long made peace with the fact that his feelings towards Aaron were a consequence of therapy, as much as embarrassing it was. 

“Maybe, but I wouldn't give up so quickly. You like David, don't you?”

“It doesn't matter if I do,” Jack said, dismissively. He hadn't let himself thinking about it, and he wasn't going to, but his stomach suddenly clenched in fear. “What if I fuck it up?”

“Suck it up, apologize and carry on, like everyone else,” Aaron said, not unkindly. “If you never initiate something, it'll never come back to bite you in the ass, but you won't get anything out of it either. Relationships fail all the time, Jack, but it's not a given.”

“I never said I want a relationship with him,” Jack whispered. The pain of Joseph's loss wasn't as strong as it used to be, but it still felt like walking in the void. “I just don't want to fuck up.”

“Friendship can fail, too,” Aaron replied, immovable. “But maybe you'll make it work, even if only as friends. Just- you'll never know if you don't put yourself out there.” Muffled voices in the background. “Shit, my break has been over for a while, I really need to go back to work. But look, my point is- for what I know of him, David won't care if you fuck up on national television, he would be there for you anyway, and that's the reason you should at least try and trust him. Just try? Social experiment?”

A smile pulled at Jack's lips. “It's funny because this time I actually have people to socialize with.”

Aaron chuckled. “You'll do great. I really gotta go.” He sobered up. “Are you going to be fine? I'm pretty sure I can ask Mathias to switch up if-”

“No, don't worry, I'll be fine. I just needed to hear some friendly advice. Or some friendly scolding, I guess.” Jack smiled. “I'll call you after the speech, so I can yell at you if I make a mess.”

“Deal,” Aaron laughed. “Call me sooner if you need to, okay?”

Jack reassured him and hung up, feeling a little wrung out. He wasn't sure the call had helped. He still had a speech to memorize, a social event to prepare to, and the fear of failure gnawing on his gut.

“ _Suck it up, apologize, and carry on like everyone else,_ ” he whispered to the empty room, thoughtful. 

He crawled out of the space beneath the desk, sat down, took a new sheet of paper and started writing. 

*

After running out of Unity hall like his life depended on it, Jack threw himself into the car he and Michelle had come with, and told Paul, the driver, to take him to Altar Mansion. He told himself that he wanted to get there before anyone else to avoid the photographers and the cameras (who were swarming everywhere, anyway), but once he got there he couldn't bring himself to get out of the car.

He sat with Paul in the car for what felt like an hour before other cars started to arrive. He stared at them from behind the darkened window, watching as the guests started going up the stairs to the Mansion. He saw Michelle and the lady whom she hired to watch little Daniel climb out from an unfamiliar dark blue van, rushing in to avoid the photographers. He still couldn't move.

He didn't show up for the dinner party. He sat outside the Mansion, wondering what they were eating; how many courses there were; after a while, if the guests were still at the first course, or if the had moved on to seconds; what kind of dessert they were having. Who had decided the seating arrangements? He hoped that David got to sit with his family, and not some boring politician.

As the time passed, he expected his phone to ring, but it stayed still and silent in his pocket. Michelle hadn't called him- she hadn't sent anybody to get him, either. It was a little strange for her, but he supposed that after what he had pulled at the Hall earlier, she was pretty mad at him. 

It was getting darker and darker outside. The lights on the first and second floor were turning on, the rest of the Mansion a floating, eerie shadow in the night. 

Paul was absently tapping away at his phone, the cool brightness from the screen the only source of light in the car's cabin. He was probably bored out of his mind, and Jack felt vaguely sorry about that; he didn't know what drivers did while they weren't driving people around, but he was fairly certain that they weren't paid to keep guard while their boss sulked in the back of the car.

He glanced at his own phone, and saw that it was almost midnight. The day was almost officially over. Maybe it was time to go home.

The door on the driver's side was suddenly wrenched open and the car was flooded with light. 

“Hey man, what the hell-” Paul started protesting, his hand flying to the gun under the seat, but then he froze, cutting himself off. “Oh. I meant- I apologize, I didn't-” he stuttered, flustered.

“I'm sorry I've startled you, sir, may I speak with Jack for a moment? Alone?” a familiar voice said. 

Paul glanced at Jack, uncertain; Jack sighed and nodded, rubbing his eyes. Paul breathed out in relief and got out of his seat. “Of course, Your Majesty,” he murmured, before closing the door behind himself.

Jack listened to their muffled voices for a while, inhaling deeply and counting backwards slowly from ten. He felt a little stiff from the uncomfortable seat, and a little nervous, but otherwise fine. His meds had probably worn off by now, but he had some in his pocket if he ever needed it. His mind was clear, his heartbeat steady.

The back door opened. David's hair looked golden even in the shitty light of the car. 

“Either get in or get out, you're letting the cold in,” Jack said, without looking at him.

“Would you come to the Mansion's cafeteria with me?” David asked. 

Jack's hands clenched. He fought the urge to wipe his sweaty palms on his pants. “No.”

“Yeah, didn't think so. Scoot over,” David prompted him. He briefly turned back to say something to the man in uniform behind him -maybe one of his brothers- and then climbed in, sliding in the open seat, and closed the door. 

They stayed like that, sitting in the darkness, for what seemed an eternity, until David broke the silence. “I didn't see you at dinner,” he said easily, like they were used to have friendly chats all the time. Being pen pals maybe helped David with the illusion, but to Jack it felt so strange.

“I wasn't there,” Jack finally replied. He was aiming for a snappy response, but it sounded flat to his own ears. 

He didn't want to look at David; it was dark, but he probably could've seen his eyes glinting in the scarce light of the streetlight, his sharp features. 

“I know. You were supposed to be at my table,” David snorted. He added quietly, “It's good to see you.”

“You can't see me. It's dark. And you've seen me already, at the ceremony,” Jack deadpanned.

David laughed. “True. But you know what I mean.”

“I know,” Jack whispered. He did. He wouldn’t have been so nervous otherwise. 


	3. Chapter 3

_Let all who take refuge in you rejoice;_  
_let them ever sing for joy._  
_Spread your protection over them,_  
_so that those who love your name may exult in you._  
_For you bless the righteous, O Lord;_  
_you cover them with favor as with a shield._  


_(Psalm 5)_

Jack still flinched sometimes, like a startled fawn.

It was subtle, almost invisible if you didn't know to look for it, but David during that first week noticed most of the times it happened. It never failed to make him feel guilty.

David had a hard time figuring out what exactly set him off. Sometimes Jack would start at noises, at people coming in without knocking, at David's sudden movements in the corner of his eye. Other times, David just couldn't say what had bothered him. 

David had the impression that it was the place itself that gave him trouble. More than once, he had tried to have them transferred to a quieter, more informal place to work, so that Jack could concentrate better, but Jack wouldn't have it: everyone worked at Unity Hall with no complaints, he said. He didn't want to be treated differently just because he was Jack Benjamin.

So every day Jack came to work in David’s studio, sat to his desk in the corner and poured over stashes of documents, meticulously taking notes and organizing folders after folders. 

(Flinching.)

“I’m just having a bad day,” Jack would mutter, when David worried. “I can handle this.” 

Telling him that he would’ve done the same for any of his employees didn’t work, so David eventually gave up. There was only so much time he could waste, trying to get him to listen. The paperwork involved to rebuild a nation was a lot more than David had imagined, and it wasn’t going to file itself. 

*

“Fuck,” Jack whispered, completely unself-conscious for once. “Don’t stop, please.” 

“As long as I’m not hurting you, all right,” David smiled, pressing harder into Jack’s flesh. The breath that escaped Jack’s lips this time almost sounded like a moan. “Good?”

“Are you fishing for compliments?” Jack almost said something else, but had to cut himself off with a groan as David found a particularly sensitive spot with his fingers.

Drawing those soft sounds out of him was the thing that David enjoyed the most about their moments together; seeing Jack more relaxed, his shoulders loose and the wrinkle between his eyes gone, was always a treat, but hearing Jack’s voice lose its edge was something else entirely.

Especially since he had started working at Unity Hall, Jack’s voice was always tight: a controlled, carefully crafted drawl, meant to express boredom, carelessness, superiority. It was the last piece of his princely persona, stubbornly stuck to his face, and yet, all that David had to do to strip the remain of that mask off, to see the real Jack Benjamin beneath, was help him out of his jacket and put his hands on his back.

“You’re the _king_ , not the appointed masseuse,” Jack had tried to complain, the first time that David had offered to give him a massage, when Jack had come in the office with a crippling ache in his lower back. 

After hearing that pain meds weren’t an option, because they interacted badly with Jack’s other medication, David just _couldn’t_ watch him try and get things done while gritting his teeth against the pain.

“I used to give back rubs to my mom all the time, when we worked at the farm,” David had insisted, scorting him to the small lounge room next door.

After then, it had become a regular thing. They did it almost every day around noon, instead of going to lunch like everyone else. David would have Jack lie down on the small plush sofa in the lounge room and give him a massage, and then they would eat a quick sandwich together, chatting and bitching about the paperwork.

It had quickly become David’s favourite part of the day: a short window of time where his stern, work-driven, nervous and paranoid colleague turned into a friendlier, less worried version of the Jack Benjamin he remembered. 

Actually, it wasn’t true. Jack had never been like this with David, during the time they spent with each other before the Revolution. This Jack was the one whose personality had shined through the letters they exchanged during the time he had been recovering in the hospital: witty and sarcastic, prone to dark humour and self-deprecating jokes; more introvert, quick to divert attention from himself, almost shy; but also mind-blowingly, earth-shatteringly _sincere_ and straightforward, rooted in his beliefs.

They hadn’t really talked about very personal stuff - Jack was still very much a mystery to him - but there was something about their interactions that felt unequivocally _real_ , authentic.

Before the Revolution, in the eyes of the people Jack Benjamin had been charming, vain, spoiled, obsessed with power; he was described as a sweet talker, willing to manipulate those around him for his gain and pleasure, ready to stab his own allies in the back for an ounce of power; according to their colleagues at the Unity Hall, Jack Benjamin was the most unfriendly, snappy, rude, fastidious, pen-pushing _jerk_ in the whole building. 

Both of those were masks; and only David had been able to see through them, to see the _real_ Jack Benjamin, who smiled at the first bite of a turkey sandwich, and enjoyed looking out of the window, and moaned when David loosened a knot in his back.

David could tell that Jack letting his mask slip like that wasn’t something that happened often, and was happy about it. He always thought that Jack was in need of someone whom he could consider a real friend, and David was more than happy to cover that role for him, even if it was only through dumb jokes and a few massages. 

“You need to stop,” Jack mumbled in the pillow he had his arm wrapped around, as David dug his thumbs at the base of his spine, careful not too lean into it with his weight too much. “If you keep going I’m going to fall asleep and we won’t get anything done this afternoon.” 

“Would it really be a bad thing?” David asked, running his hands soothingly against Jack’s side through his shirt, as he sit down next to his hip. “You’ve been working non-stop for almost two months now. You came in even during the weekend last week, even if Sarah told you it wasn’t necessary.” 

“You were here too, I couldn’t let you alone,” Jack pointed out. “And no, I really couldn’t. I can already hear the gossip around the office: ‘Jack Benjamin slacks off while King David does all the work himself!!!’ No, thank you. My reputation is already bad as it is without adding ‘slacker’ to the mix.” 

“I didn’t know you cared about your reputation,” David joked, and immediately regretted his words when he saw Jack flinch. 

One of the reasons he had kept offering back rubs to Jack was that it seemed to help with the flinching; Jack himself had admitted that he had been sleeping better. Triggering his nerves was exactly the opposite of what they were supposed to be doing. 

“I don’t,” Jack recovered quickly, but he briefly hugged the pillow closer, burying his face in it, before slowly sitting up. His shirt was a mess of wrinkles. “Do you?” he asked, without looking at David. His tone was light, but the mood of the conversation felt suddenly heavy. 

David hesitated. “I never really thought about it. I don’t care about gossip,” he said, and it was the truth. David didn’t care what people thought of him, most of the time. The only thing that really worried him was the whole butterfly business- but the swarm had calmed down after he had been crowned. It had been such a relief. And yet, he didn’t think that was what Jack was referring to. 

“Repetition makes reputation, and reputation makes customers,” Jack quoted. “It was something that my mother used to say. I think she meant that if you’re capable people will trust you more easily- but I always found it sinister.” He distractedly smoothed out his shirt. “Like, whatever you do, people will know, and the more you do it, the worse it gets.”

David didn’t really know what to say to that, but Jack wasn’t waiting for an answer.

“S-she also used to say ‘It takes twenty years to build a reputation, and five minutes to ruin it’,” he continued, stuttering slightly. He was still carefully avoiding to look at him, and that was the thing that was unnerving David the most. He hadn’t been doing that since the first time they had talked after his release, in the car, after the ceremony. “You know what people in the office have been talking about lately?

“No. As I said, I don’t listen much to office chatter” _and neither should you_ , David wanted to say, but he wasn’t sure that Jack would’ve allowed for such a comment. He didn’t want him to think that he was dismissing his emotions. For someone who always acted like he didn’t care, Jack tended to become awfully fretful over other people’s opinion of him.

“I heard Sarah tell Beth that you never show up to lunch because you’re too busy with me.”

David blinked. “Well. It’s the truth.” 

Jack scoffed, leaning back until he hit the backrest of the sofa, and he crossed his legs, turning away from David. “They’re talking about _sex_ , David!” he snapped. “They think we’re _screwing_.” 

_Ah_. It was _that_ kind of rumour. No wonder Jack looked distraught. 

It was true that David wasn’t interested in gossip, but he couldn’t say the same for his colleagues and acquaintances. Before the Revolution, Jack’s sexual exploits and habits were something rags and the public had loved to discuss; then, everyone had heard king Silas call his son a _faggot_ on national television. The slur managed to make a bigger scandal than the fact that the king was bribing witnesses to lie in his favour in court, and nobody seemed to be able to shut up about it. 

It was unfair that people got to make fun of others’ intimate lives. As long as they weren’t being harmful, what people did on their personal time didn’t matter. It was nobody’s place to pry.

David hated that kind of thing, especially now that he could see how _upset_ Jack was about it.

It was subtle; his body looked deceivingly relaxed, calm, but there was something in the line of his shoulders that betrayed the fact that he felt something unsettled and pained.

“Not that it bothers me,” Jack laughed. It rang false in David’s ears. “I’m used to it. I mean, f-father did tell everybody that I’m a filthy cocksucker, so where’s the scandal in that?”

It was worded like a joke, but David couldn’t ignore the bitterness in his words, the mean, biting edge on the word _cocksucker_ , the way his voice cracked when he mentioned Silas. 

“Anyway, you should be more worried about those rumours. After all you’re the victim in this, the poor, naive, weak king seduced by the evil, scorned heir. Your reputation is at risk, too, doesn’t it bother _you_?” Jack continued, insults underlying his tone. 

_Does it bother you that they’re calling you weak?_

Jack was looking at him, gauging his reaction, waiting for an answer. Testing him.

David didn’t bite. “No. Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God knows of us. That’s what _my_ mom used to say, anyway.” He smiled a bit. “Regardless, it wouldn’t be a weakness to fall for a man like you.” 

Jack looked taken aback at that. “What?”

David’s smile grew broader. “Well, you’re quite attractive, and you’re smart, and you know a lot about this stuff,” he listed. Struck by the idea, he continued. “If anything, people should be relieved if I’d taken such a capable companion for a spouse-”

“David.” Jack interrupted, voice cracking. “That’s enough.” He sounded strangely quiet, all of a sudden. He had looked much more animated during his loud bout of self-deprecating, inappropriate humor, but now he was back to that forced, apparent calm. He seemed hurt.

“I’m not making fun of your preferences,” David said, quietly. “I apologize if it sounded that way.” 

Once again, Jack seemed surprised. “I wouldn’t be offended by that. As I said, I’m used to it.” He hesitated. “Thank you, though. There aren’t many who are okay with … people like me.” 

“Uh, you’re welcome,” David replied, only then realizing that it had been the first time that Jack had admitted to be a homosexual without turning it into a joke. “I wasn’t sure that you actually liked men, but either way it seemed a rude thing to make fun of.” 

For some reason, that startled Jack into a laugh. It sounded real though, so David didn’t complain.

The pendulum clock that sat in David’s office struck two o’clock, and the two of them groaned at the same time. “There goes our lunch break,” Jack complained, getting up and straightening his clothes. His shirt was a lost cause, but he didn’t seem too worried about that. 

“I can ask Beth to fetch our usual sandwiches and take fifteen more minutes,” David offered, standing up. They were probably going to work late today as well, it wouldn’t make a difference if they took a longer break. 

“Nah, don’t worry, I’ll go. I need to make a call, I can do it while I walk to the cafeteria.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

David sat at his desk, rearranging a few stacks of paper while Jack rummaged in his jacket’s pocket to get his phone before going.

“I was thinking,” Jack started, opening the door and calling behind his shoulder.

“What?”

“That spouse thing-” Jack hesitated. “Not a bad idea. I would get my crown back without stabbing you to death,” he continued, with a nervous grin. “Win-win?” 

David burst into laughter. “Shut up and go make me a sandwich, Jack.”

“Now, _that’s_ rude!” Jack chastised him, but he was laughing, too. 


End file.
